The present disclosure relates to healthcare information systems such as nurse call systems and bed status systems found in healthcare facilities. More particularly, the present disclosure relates to the handling and display of data associated with patients and the hospital beds on which patients are located, as well as any nurse calls or other types of alert or alarm calls originating from patient rooms.
Nurse call systems used in healthcare facilities, such as hospitals, are known. Patients place nurse calls by pressing a nurse call button on a siderail of a hospital bed or by pressing a nurse call button on a handheld unit known in the art as a pillow speaker. Wall mounted cords or switches may also be used to place nurse calls. Typically, after the nurse call is placed, a nurse at a master station will speak with the patient via an intercom type system to find out why the patient placed the nurse call.
Some nurse call systems are configured to receive and display bed status data to indicate the positions and/or status of various subsystems or portions of the hospital beds that are located in various patient rooms. The bed status data may include, for example, data indicating whether each of the siderails of the bed are up or down, data indicating whether the casters of the bed are braked or unbraked, and data indicating whether an upper frame of the bed is in its lowest position relative to a base frame of the bed. Examples of such prior art nurse call systems are Hill-Rom's COMposer™ communication system and Hill-Rom's COMLinx™ communication system.
Hospitals are continually trying to improve the efficiency of caregivers. In this regard, providing needed information quickly to caregivers without the caregivers having to spend valuable time retrieving the information enhances caregiver efficiency. However, if too much information is provided to caregivers, they can become overwhelmed with the data which results in diminishing, rather than enhancing, caregiver productivity. Striking the right balance between providing too little information to caregivers and too much information to caregivers is no easy task. In the prior art nurse call systems, certain information was available to caregivers only after certain selections on a computer screen were made or certain keyboard entries were made. Such extra steps to retrieve desired information detract from caregiver productivity.